Awakening
by Type 22 TARDIS
Summary: Awakening from a series of massacres he does not remember, the Sith'ari slowly discovers what the Jedi are hiding from him; he was a powerful Sith Lord, and is responsible for millions of deaths. But things take a darker turn when the Sith, thought to be felled with the Sith'ari, return. Was he truly their leader, or was a more malevolent, more cunning evil controlling them?


**Awakening**

**Prologue**

**By David Williamson**

***-Star Wars AU Fanfiction, set after alternate Episode VI**

**On board the darkened, shadow-rimmed bridge of the New Sith Order flagship **_**Mwintuska**_**, the true Sith'ari, the Destroyer of Worlds, stood. Eyes closed, stance neutral, feet spread, a metallic grey lightsabre handle held loosely in his right hand. He was garbed in dark armour, black thermal-resistant cloth with light plate covering, the metal a dark, dark grey.**

**While he appeared to be doing very little, his mind was in fact very busy; invisible Dark-side Force energies swirled around him, flowing outward into his doomed, critically-damaged vessel. These energies assisted his own troops and the ship's remaining automated defence systems, improving weapon accuracy and endurance, and subtly affecting his enemy; demoralizing, nudging weapons at just the right time, slightly altering the course of shrapnel from grenades and mines to make the metal fragments land in **_**just**_** the right spots to cause maximum pain, damage and death.**

**Guilt surged through him as he did this; he could feel pain and fear abounding, and he knew that **_**he**_** had caused it. But he had no choice. If he tried to stop now, if he physically refused to comply, it would make no difference. A tiny dark-side based AI, stored within a Force-enchanted crystal the size of grain of wheat, had been implanted in his brain, and it compelled him to follow orders, to destroy and conquer.**

**Half the time the Sith'ari refused to move, or think, but the AI tapped into his own intellect, knowledge and abilities, and performed just as efficiently and effectively as he himself did. When that happened, he was forced to watch as his own hands cut down dozens and dozens of innocents until his body was spattered with the blood of one-hundred species, his own voice ordering the deaths of millions until whole worlds were drowning in molten glass and metal.**

**It was an eternal nightmare; even while he slept, which he did only sparingly, the AI would continue. He never felt tired, not like other species did, and he quickly recovered from any physical strain. He had personally laid waste to a swathe of the Outer Rim of the New Republic, attacking dozens of worlds, destroying the handful that were deemed too difficult to dominate.**

**That was how he came to be here, on his state-of-the-art flagship, currently crash-landed in what used to be a heavily-populated residential area. In reflection, he realised that he had had too much faith in Sith sorcery and technology. Not that he regretted it. In fact, he almost **_**welcomed**_** being defeated. It would end the insane carnage he had been causing.**

**The Republic had somehow managed to smuggle some explosives onto his ship; when his flagship descended from orbit and positioned itself above the city, several megatons worth of fusion bombs had detonated, crippling his ship's faster-than-light drive, main reactor and most of their heavy weapons.**

**His ship had careened into the burning rubble that was the city, crushing a massive section of it, killing thousands of people, but ending his reign forever, for immediately after that, hundreds of Republic warships, backed by twice as many assorted alien ships had emerged from subspace, and opened up on his fleet of a dozen massive, state-of-the-art warships.**

**His ship was incapable of lifting off, and swarms of hundreds of starfighters prevented escape pods or shuttles from leaving, occasionally stabbing at his ship with lances of plasma, disabling any visible signs of enemy activity. His fleet was picked off one ship at a time, the Republic taking surprisingly few losses. Meanwhile, the planet's military forces, lead by the Jedi of the fledgling New Jedi Order, converged on his ship; they wanted the Sith'ari and his miraculous ship intact for tests and analysis.**

**Hundreds of soldiers forced their way into the ship's fighter bays, through shattered escape pod rings and the ruptures in the lower sections of the ship. His own troops held their own for quite a time; a combination of assorted alien troops bearing battered, illegal weaponry, freshly-manufactured destroyer droids wrapped in powerful shield bubbles and roving squads of state-of-the-art assassin droids that bore nightmarish canisters of hallucinogenic gases.**

**They fought beyond all expectations; the docking bays were crammed with seared, smouldering corpses, blocking doors and corridors, creating mountains of mutilated dead bodies that allowed easy access from the ground to the ships. Automated antipersonnel turrets launched sprays of plasma bolts down on the Republic's soldiers, only to be silenced by lightsabres or well-targeted sniper's rounds.**

**Inevitably, the Sith'ari felt his own warriors being routed, downed by plasma bolts, lightsabres and telekinetic attacks. His destroyer droids were overwhelmed by sheer number of plasma bolts or cleverly-placed explosives, his assassin droids were hunted by Jedi and Republic commando squads in sealed armour. His subtle Dark magic was being pushed back and neutralised by the Light side of the Force, being brought to bear by Jedi.**

**He couldn't determine their exact number; thirty or forty at least, with about a dozen focused exclusively on cancelling out the effects of his battle meditations. A few of the others were getting close now; they were less than fifty meters away now; he could almost feel them slicing and dicing their way through the last of his defenders. Almost time now.**

**He began to withdraw his efforts from that particular endeavour, and began to intensify his own inner darkness, drawing his resentment and bitterness into his bones, muscles and nerves. His whole being seemed to swell with power, and he felt an extraordinary feeling of sheer strength and lightness flow through him, followed by the chill of a rush of dopamine. He took a deep breath, and tensed his muscles, stretching both physically and mentally; he rose a foot from the metal deck beneath him, hovering in mid-air, and as he released his breath, he settled back onto the cold metal plating.**

'**They're almost here. Ready your weapons. Kill them.' The odd assortment of live officers and Jedi-killer droids readied their weapons. The Sith'ari knew that he couldn't defeat all of the enemies at once. He had, however, been ordered to stay and fight if and when the time came. He blinked, and a vague thought floated across his tortured consciousness. **_**'Maybe the Jedi will be strong enough to kill me, and end all of this.'**_

**Before he had much more time to contemplate this, however, one of the three doors to the bridge opened with a whine, and in rushed four figures, each bearing at least one lightsabre, one of them bearing two. He resisted for a few seconds, but then there was a faint surge of the Force through his body, and his own lightsabre, the cursed weapon that had felled tens of thousands of innocent lives, sprang to life, a blade of confined blood red plasma held inside complex containment fields.**

**He watched with a sinking feeling in his heart as his Jedi-killer droids bore down on the Jedi, bearing lightsabre-resistant staves, moving faster than the eye could see. Plasma crackled and snarled against the Phrik-plated staves, and plasma bolts sizzled from his officer's and pilot's sidearms, reflected back at them by the well-trained Jedi strike-group.**

**Within moments all the organic bridge crew were killed by their own plasma bolts, and that left the half-dozen droids against the four Jedi. That number was quickly reduced to three; a female Twi'lek, who the Sith'ari recalled was called Jaden, leapt gracefully over the fighters, and landed directly in front of him on the raised command platform, forest-green lightsabre raised.**

**He immediately reviewed everything he knew about her. She was a Twi'lek, orphaned, had been raised by a lower middle-class Human family, and joined the New Jedi Order at the age of fourteen. She possessed prodigious skill with a lightsabre and a variety of other weapons, and her Force abilities were as numerous as they were powerful. She had defeated dozens of extremely powerful opponents, and if the stories were to be believed, a **_**Sith Lord**_** as well.**

**The Sith'ari attacked immediately; his blows landed faster than the eye could see, with enough force to make the slim female Twi'lek stagger. She quickly adapted, diverting the momentum of his blows instead of halting them outright, and the Sith'ari switched tactics, aiming to end it all quickly; he jumped backwards, and before Jaden could press an attack, he brought his rage to bear; a metal support strut, five meters long and made of heavy tungsten wrapped in toughened titanium, tore itself free from the walls with a terrible shriek, and flew at Jaden.**

**She rolled gracefully to the side, and her lightsabre flashed momentarily with shocking emerald flames; with a magnesium-white flare of light and an explosion of molten metal droplets, the strut was sliced cleanly in two. The Sith'ari lost focus as the object changed, becoming not one, but two, and it crashed to the ground with an ear-rending crash. Jaden didn't miss a beat; with her right hand, which held her lightsabre, she made a fist at the Sith'ari, the space around her hand distorting as though from heat, and he felt a solid impact on his chest, which almost pushed him off the command platform. _'What was that?' _He wondered, having never seen a Force power like it.  
**

**He almost missed the gesture she had made with her left hand; a pilot's dropped plasma pistol flew into it, and she laid down a heavy stream of fire, which he reflected straight back at her. One handed, still-firing, she reflected half a dozen bolts back at him; for five seconds, their arms moved so fast they wouldn't have showed up even on a security camera playback; the plasma bolts ricocheted between them, filling the bridge with dancing red lights, before their magnetic fields collapsed, and they popped like balloons, releasing little puffs of red fire.**

**The Sith'ari however hadn't yet reached his full powers; he snarled, his face livid with rage, his mind filled with nothing but bitterness, regret and depression, and a blur of compressed air rushed out from his right hand, moving straight towards Jaden; she rolled, and managed to avoid the main part of the Sith'ari's attack; most of it dissipated against the door the Jedi had come through, making the whole bulkhead shudder alarmingly.**

**Their lightsabres clashed for several seconds, making eerie electric snarling sounds, sending wafts of glowing gold gas into the air. They locked their lightsabres against each other for a moment, and the Sith'ari felt Jaden using the Force; a body had risen from the deck-plating, and soared towards him. He snarled, and lashed out; the body exploded in a cloud of gore and bodily fragments, spattering against the far wall. Jaden redoubled her efforts, and then leapt back, gracefully back-flipping, landing with a gentle thud; the Sith'ari pulled back with a flourish, gliding across the decking before letting his feet hit the metal flooring again.**

**He raised his left hand, and unleashed a streamer of crackling blue electricity on Jaden. He didn't put much strength into it, but the sound and sight of snapping electricity was loud enough to make his ears ring and his eyes water. Jaden didn't block the spell; she merely redirected it slightly; it snarled and snapped against the metal floor, walls and ceiling, leaving discoloured electrical burns on the metal.**

**She had been building up for an attack, however; she gestured, and one of the segments of the wall reinforcement strut rose from the decking, and flew at the Sith'ari, very, very fast. He grappled with her mentally, and was surprised to feel his strength insufficient to block it completely in the face of such determination; he instead redirected it; it swung in a strange arc around him, and then whipped back towards Jaden; she gracefully rolled aside, letting go of the massive, heavy metal chunk as it zoomed towards the heavy metal door the Jedi had entered through; it smashed into the metal with a **_**crash**_** that made the whole bridge shudder, and planted itself halfway through the twisted, reinforced metal.**

**In the background, one of the Jedi-killer droids was suddenly decapitated, followed by its entire body falling to the ground in a pile of scrap. As this happened, another armoured door slid open, and two more Jedi-killer droids, bearing wicked-looked Phrik implements, rushed in; the Jedi engaged them. **

**Jaden resumed her attack as this happened; she made another gesture, and another corpse soared into the air. The Sith'ari felt impotent rage fill him as he grappled with her; she was more practiced than he; her focus kept shifting and phasing, making it difficult to directly counter her. Power rushed into him as he became frustrated, and instead of pushing against the corpse, he **_**crushed **_**it.**

**It curled inwards with a hideous crunching, snapping sound, and Jaden pushed blindly against it; the Sith'ari relinquished his hold on it, sensing she wasn't going to attack him; it slammed into the forward bank of viewing screens, smashing half of them, spraying the rest with chunky, meaty slop.**

**She continued her attack with a long, two-handed slash with her lightsabre; she grazed it against the deck plating as she did, sending a stream of molten metal droplets and sparks at the Sith'ari's face; with a blast of the Force, he sent the sparks flying, and Jaden onto her back. As he rushed forward, lightsabre raised to finish her off, she responded with by elegantly tripping him up with her legs; he failed to avoid it in time, sending him crashing onto his chest, his lightsabre snarling against the metal deck-plating, leaving a red-rimmed smear in the metal.**

**Another great wrench of the Force, and he flew into the air, soaring fifteen meters away, towards the front of the bridge, landing on his feet, as Jaden's emerald lightsabre sunk deeply into the metal where he had been lying only moments before. She wrenched it out of the rapidly melting metal, sending drops of yellow-hot liquid into the air, and leapt after him. He raised his hands in readiness, and focused on his bitterness and contempt, using them to draw heavily upon the dark side.**

**More power rushed through him, and he felt the most incredible surge of dopamine. He could feel Jaden gathering her power as well, and he knew that in a moment, they would pit themselves against each other, brute strength against brute strength. As she landed, she raised her hand, and he felt an incredible rush of Light side energies, directed into a mono-directional push. He seized the spell she had fired at him, imposing his will on it, and flooded it with dark side energies, letting the betrayal, misery and agony that was his life surge outwards.**

**To Jaden's credit, she matched him. He was stronger than her, and he was using baser Human emotions, albeit ones weak in power, but he didn't really want to harm her; he wanted to crawl into a hole and die, to forget all the atrocities he was being forced to cause. She was drawing upon compassion, mercy and logic to aid her. For a few seconds, there was nothing but silence from them. Their hands outstretched, only a metre of space separating their fingers. Then the space between them rippled as though in a heat-haze, and there was an ominous rumbling sound.**

**The spell seemed to be fracturing, splitting, dividing like a cell inside a body. The section closer to the Sith'ari was pushing towards Jaden, and the section closer to Jaden was pushing towards the Sith'ari, each charged with opposing energies. The Sith'ari felt heat on his face as the air started to rapidly heat up, taking on a red hue as it got hot enough to glow. Then, as the stored power became unstable, the pent-up energy was released.**

**All were thrown to their feet, the Sith'ari included. The Sith'ari had been prepared, however; with the Force he enhanced his body's structural integrity, causing the bone-breaking impact to be reduced to merely uncomfortable. As the concussion wave rocked through the bridge, it seemed to vanish in a shower of broken glass and sparks; the lights and control consoles buckled, disgorging clouds of slivers of glass. The walls themselves shook, the metal flexing to absorb the blast.**

**After the glass had settled, everything was dark and silent for a few moments. The three Jedi that had been combating the droids leapt up first, re-igniting their lightsabres, quickly dismantling the momentarily confused Jedi-killer droids, advancing on the duo of duellers.**

**Seconds later, both the Sith'ari and Jaden were battling again, lightsabres snarling and crackling against each other, releasing flares of short-lived golden diatum plasma as their respective lightsabres attacked each other's protective containment fields every time they clashed. Jaden was fast and elegant, her attacks never leaving any openings, her parries always positioned to allow multiple counter-attacks, and in spite of this, her blows landed hard and heavy as a snake, and always expertly delivered to throw the Sith'ari off balance if he didn't block them perfectly. She switched between several lightsabre duelling forms seamlessly, and used hybrid forms as well; the Sith'ari was never able to adapt to her, but she adapted flawlessly to him.**

**The Sith'ari relied on brute force, using copious amounts of Dark side energies to amplify his strength to levels where his bones, ligaments and tendons almost tore themselves apart, often using even more Dark side energies to reinforce his internal framework or musculature. Several times he needed to use large bursts of energy to move himself out of the way of her attacks in time, or wrench his arms clumsily into place to block. As he drew upon the evil magic of the Dark side, its energies rippled through him, subtly corrupting his tissues as they went.**

**As the other three Jedi bore down on him, he went onto the defensive. Green, blue, yellow and orange lightsabres crackled and snarled against his own; he was always retreating and parrying, dancing around the bridge, avoiding attacks by mere seconds, his robes quickly being reduced to singed rags from near-misses. He unleashed several crackling streamers of Force lightning, and he was amazed when Jaden caught one of the strands of energy in her left hand, snarled, amplified it by an order of magnitude, and fired it back at him; his lightsabre intercepted the harsh white lightning, and vibrated horribly as it struggled the suppress the spell; he avoided using it again.**

**The walls, floor and controls around the duelling party were sporadically criss-crossed with glowing red lines as the blades of plasma sizzled across the metal, giving the dark room a strange, hellish and ruined look. The Jedi levitated broken-off pieces of metal and equipment and sent them screaming at the Sith'ari; he dodged some, and forcefully deflected the rest, though found it difficult to wrench the ambient evil of the universe into the shapes he wanted to that quickly; he was being worn down.**

**The Sith'ari began to retreat to one of the working doors, realising that he couldn't defeat the four Jedi if he fought them all at once; he needed to separate them. Most troublesome was Jaden; she nearly killed him half-a-dozen times, and every time he thought he was going to pin her down, she ducked, scuttled, leapt or hacked her way out.**

**Finally, after several minutes of the most intense duelling imaginable, which left one of the armoured walls severely worried with lightsabre burns, he managed to retreat to one of the working doors, which groaned open. He quickly scuttled backwards, and as Jaden crossed the threshold of the door, he made a gesture at the door controls. The door quickly slammed shut-an emergency lock, and he grimaced at Jaden; he was alone with her, and in the cramped space of this corridor, he knew who was going to win. Behind her, he heard a faint, indistinct noise, and he saw a slowly expanding red spot on the heavy blast door; the Jedi were melting through the door.**

**Jaden was unable to use her spacious, fluid tactics in the confined space; he began to wear her down with massive, brute-force strikes, causing her to almost drop her lightsabre several times. Minutes passed; lightsabres moved so fast they blurred into glowing circles, the air reeked of sweat and diatum gas, Jaden received a smashed nose and the Sith'ari a light burn on his lightsabre-resistant chest armour.**

**Their attacks began to become clumsy and slow, and they both panted heavily, their clothes soaked with sweat. They had been feeding their bodies with massive amounts of Force energy; Jaden was suffering from Force exhaustion, and the Sith'ari was beginning to feel ill as the malicious nature of the Dark side took effect.**

**Finally, as the Jedi in the bridge began to succeed in their efforts to breach the door, the two warriors locked sabres, and leaned forwards, propelling themselves forwards against each other with the full power of the Force, their lightsabres making strange electric sounds as over a ton of force was applied to them, intense golden flames licking the blades from the points of contact. Their eyes met. They both knew that this was it, that this was their final confrontation. The Sith'ari looked into Jaden's eyes, and tried to convey to her that none of this had been his choice, that all this destruction, wasted energy and life, that all of it was the work of another. He was merely an embodiment, a processing and storage unit.**

**He saw grim determination in her eyes, but after a few moments, something else. He had to tell her, even if he was going to kill her. Someone in the universe **_**had**_** to know. Knowing that the AI would torture him relentlessly for months if he succeeded, he gathered his willpower, and spat the words out, through an uncooperative mouth. 'I… Didn't…' He felt pain fill his mind as the AI savaged him for this act of defiance. Just one other thing. He had to say it. To give her the strength to best him. 'Kill… M… Me…'**

**He screwed up his eyes, then screamed as pain flooded his brain. His mind, memories, thoughts and personality were being whipped, burned, flayed, beaten and skinned. He thought he felt her through the Force, her sudden knowledge of what had occurred. He felt her push against him redouble; he opened his eyes, squinting at her, and he saw in her eyes, **_**compassion.**_** It was strengthening her link to the Light side of the Force. It let the light flood through her, and she used it to reinforce her already considerable strength.**

**The Sith'ari watched as the crimson blade was pushed back towards him, and he realised what was about to happen with a horrible, sickening plunge. His lightsabre, at first glance, appeared to be a standard length, single-bladed lightsabre. Even a detailed visual examination wouldn't reveal anything unusual. But it was, in fact, a **_**double-bladed**_** lightsabre, the second blade emitter hidden behind a fake gas refill nozzle.**

**It had been a tactic, that he had devised in the back of his mind, put into place by the accursed AI inside him, that if he was caught, cornered, and initiated a 'sabre lock, and somehow was physically being overpowered, he would simply activate the second blade when his sabre was angled towards his body, and the **_**pommel was pointing at his enemy. **_**He had no way to warn her about what was going to happen.**

**He felt a savage glee from that loathsome AI as the crimson blade was pushed closer and closer to his face. It was almost touching his nose, when he felt a tiny surge in the Force. A single command to his lightsaber. A pre-programmed procedure. There was a sudden crackling buzz, followed by a sizzling sound and a surprised grunt. He felt a thin spray of blood, fat and other tissues rain onto his trousers.**

**The enemy lightsaber slackened, and he ripped his own free, darting back, the second lightsabre blade deactivating with a snap-hiss. He looked down at Jaden, who was huddled in the foetal position on the decking, her lightsabre, still active, held loosely in one hand. Smoke, blood and intestinal fluids oozed outwards through the hole in her, and she looked up at him, face blank and calm.**

**They stared at each other, both very still. In the background, the heavy blast door began to melt into a large puddle, yellow and white. 'No… More.' The Sith'ari said. He allowed his eyes to close, and took a deep breath. The pain had lessened in the last few minutes; the AI had been more concerned with killing Jaden than it had torturing him. He felt the irresistible urge to attack, to strike, to kill, rising within him.**

**He refused. He didn't just not send any signals down his nerve pathways, he **_**jammed**_** his nerve pathways. With the Force, he froze every single peripheral nervous connection he had. The pain returned, as bad as before, worse. His willpower dissolved, and his consciousness shattered. He felt the AI tearing his sanity away, deleting his personality structures and rending memories, permanently damaging his brain.**

**Within a single quantum moment, he was trapped inside a realm of pure chaos, pure evil, where consciousness ceased, and reason and logic had no meaning. The AI inflicted every single kind of torture it could, every single kind of hurt, pain and displeasure. It scrabbled desperately for control of his body, but he simply refused to allow it control. **

**He hurtled backwards at infinite speed, through imaginary realms of drowning fever, childhood terrors, everything that elicited fear or dread within him. He knew that even if it all stopped right now, he would be forever disabled, half-sane, with a broken memory, a stunted personality, logic and reason forever beyond his grasp.**

**Centuries and seconds seemed to pass; the last thing he was aware of, before the Sith'ari ceased to exist forever, was a green light shining through his eyelids, a sense of movement in front of him, a sizzling, crackling sound, and falling backwards.**


End file.
